AI Forum
Prof. Usama Fayyad
Northeastern University, USA
Bio
Usama Fayyad is the inaugural executive director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University and professor of the practice at Khoury College of Computer Sciences. He is Chairman of Open Insights, a technology and consulting firm he founded in 2008 after leaving Yahoo! to help enterprises deploy Data-driven solutions to grow revenue from AI and Data assets.
Bio
Usama Fayyad is the inaugural executive director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University and professor of the practice at Khoury College of Computer Sciences. He is Chairman of Open Insights, a technology and consulting firm he founded in 2008 after leaving Yahoo! to help enterprises deploy Data-driven solutions to grow revenue from AI and Data assets. Usama became the first person to hold the Chief Data Officer title after Yahoo! acquired his second startup, as RVP he also founded Yahoo Research Labs.
Fayyad’s previous roles include Global Chief Data Officer at Barclays Bank and Founding Executive Chairman at Oasis500. He served as co-founder & CTO of OODA Health, held leadership roles at Microsoft and founded the Machine Learning Systems group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where his work on machine learning resulted in the top Excellence in Research award from Caltech and a U.S. Government medal from NASA.
Fayyad earned his Ph.D. in engineering in AI/Machine Learning from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and holds two Bachelor of Science in Engineering degrees in Engineering, MSE Computer Engineering and M.Sc. in Mathematics. Fayyad has published over 100 technical articles on data mining, data science, AI/ML, and databases. He holds over 20 patents and is a Fellow of both the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He has edited two influential books on data mining/data science and served as Founding Editor-in-Chief on two key journals.
Prof. Jon Whittle
Data61, Australia
Title: Being Human in a World of AI
Abstract
The pace of technology is faster than ever before. For those working in the field of AI, it can be overwhelming just to keep on top of latest developments. In an attention economy, it’s become increasingly hard to switch off and it’s only going to get harder as AI becomes our productivity guru, our coach, our friend, our therapist, even our soul-mate. In a world increasingly dominated by AI, where our attention is coupled to a machine, what does it mean to be human? How can we retain the best of human experience at the same time as reaping the benefits of AI? How should we try to influence the development of tech so that we end up with a society we want to live in, rather than one that’s been designed by accident?
Bio
Prof. Jon Whittle is the Director of Data61 at CSIRO, the digital and data science arm of Australia's national science agency. Prior to joining Data61, Jon was Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. He was named CEO Magazine's 2019 Education Executive of the Year. He was a former Technical Area Lead at NASA, where he worked on software for NASA space missions.
Bio
Prof. Jon Whittle is the Director of Data61 at CSIRO, the digital and data science arm of Australia's national science agency. Prior to joining Data61, Jon was Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. He was named CEO Magazine's 2019 Education Executive of the Year. He was a former Technical Area Lead at NASA, where he worked on software for NASA space missions.
Prof. Whittle is passionate about the role digital technologies can play in society, and has a world-leading reputation on how to adapt software development methods to fully take into account human values and ethics. With around 1000 staff and affiliates, Data61 is one of the largest collections of R&D expertise in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science in the world. Data61 partners with over 200 industry and government organisations, over 30 Universities, and works across vertical sectors in manufacturing, health, agriculture, and the environment. Data61 offers computer scientists, data scientists, engineers and designers a unique opportunity to work on cutting edge research that will translate into real-world positive impacts on society.
Prof Hugh Durrant-Whyte
NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, Australia
Bio
Hugh Durrant-Whyte is the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer and Natural Resources Commissioner.
Bio
Hugh Durrant-Whyte is the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer and Natural Resources Commissioner.
- From 2016-18, Hugh was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence.
- From 2014-16 and from 2002-2010, he was a Professor and ARC Federation Fellow at the University of Sydney.
- From 2010-2014, he was CEO of National ICT Australia (NICTA), and from 1995-2010 Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems and of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR).
Hugh is a world-leading authority on machine learning and robotics, and applications in areas including cargo handling, mining and defence. He has published over 300 research papers, graduated over 70 PhD students, and has won numerous awards and prizes for his work, including being named 2010 NSW Scientist of the Year and 2008 Engineers Australia NSW Engineer of the Year. In his career he has worked with many major companies and has co-founded three successful start-up companies. He is particularly well known for his work with Patrick in delivering the automated container terminals in Brisbane and Port Botany, and for his work with Rio Tinto in pioneering and delivering the automated “Mine of the Future”. He is an honorary Fellow of Engineers Australia (HonFIEAus), a Fellow of the IEEE (FIEEE), Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng), Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS).
Scientia Prof. Toby Walsh
UNSW, Australia
Title: The Shortest History of AI
Abstract
Since Alan Turing first posed the question, ‘Can machines think?’, artificial intelligence has evolved from a speculative idea to a transformative force. But many of the ‘overnight’ successes like ChatGPT were decades in the making. To understand where we’re headed, I shall argue that we need to understand where we’ve been. In this talk, I will summarize progress we’ve made in AI through six key ideas.
Bio
Toby Walsh is Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, research group leader at Data61, adjunct professor at QUT, external Professor of the Department of Information Science at Uppsala University, an honorary fellow of the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University and an Associate Member of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW.
Bio
Toby Walsh is Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales, research group leader at Data61, adjunct professor at QUT, external Professor of the Department of Information Science at Uppsala University, an honorary fellow of the School of Informatics at Edinburgh University and an Associate Member of the Australian Human Rights Institute at UNSW.
He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, and of AI Communications. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of the ACM, Journal of Automated Reasoning and the Constraints journal. He has been elected a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and the European Coordinating Committee for AI in recognition of his reseach in artificial intelligence and service to the community. He has won the NSW Premier's Prize for Excellende in Engineering and ICT, the Humbolt Award, the Research Excellence Award of the Association for Constraint Programming and the .IJCAI Donald E. Walker Distinguished Service Award. He has been Secretary of the Associtation for Constraint Programming (ACP) and is Editor of CP News, the newsletter of the ACP. He is one of the Editors of the Handbook for Constraint Programming, and the Handbook for Satisfiability.
He has been Program and Conference Chair of the main conferences in Constraint Programming, Automated Reasoning and Artificial Intelligence.
Prof. Lei Chen
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology(GZ), China
Title: Data-driven AI Innovations and Trends
Bio
Lei Chen is a Chair Professor in Data Science and Analytics at HKUST (GZ), a Fellow of ACM and IEEE. Currently, he serves as the Dean of the Information Hub and the Director of the Big Data Institute at HKUST (GZ). Prof. Chen’s research spans several areas, including Data-driven AI, Big Data Analytics, the Metaverse, knowledge graphs,
Bio
Lei Chen is a Chair Professor in Data Science and Analytics at HKUST (GZ), a Fellow of ACM and IEEE. Currently, he serves as the Dean of the Information Hub and the Director of the Big Data Institute at HKUST (GZ). Prof. Chen’s research spans several areas, including Data-driven AI, Big Data Analytics, the Metaverse, knowledge graphs, blockchain technology, data privacy, crowdsourcing, and spatial and temporal databases, as well as probabilistic databases. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Prof. Chen has received several prestigious awards, including the SIGMOD Test-of-Time Award in 2015 and the Best Research Paper Award at VLDB 2022. His team’s system also won the Excellent Demonstration Award at VLDB 2014. He served as the Program Committee Co-chair for VLDB 2019 and currently holds the position of Editor-in-Chief for IEEE Transactions on Data and Knowledge Engineering. In addition, he was the General Co-Chair of VLDB 2024 and will serve as the General Co-Chair of IJCAI China 2025.
Prof. Simon See
Senior Director, Chief Solution Architect and Global Head, NVIDIA AI Technology Center, NVIDIA Corporation
Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Professor (Adjunct) KMUTT, NTU (Singapore) and Universitas Indonesia (UI)
Title: Path towards generation and manufacturing of “Intelligence”
Bio
Professor Simon See is currently the Solution Architecture and Engineering Director, Chief Solution Architect and Global Head for NVIDIA AI Technology Center, NVIDIA Corporation. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Conventry University, and Universitas Indonesia (UI) and Newcastle University in Singapore. He is also a distinguished fellow in Fudan University.
Bio
Professor Simon See is currently the Solution Architecture and Engineering Director, Chief Solution Architect and Global Head for NVIDIA AI Technology Center, NVIDIA Corporation. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Conventry University, and Universitas Indonesia (UI) and Newcastle University in Singapore. He is also a distinguished fellow in Fudan University. Previously Professor See is also the Chief Scientific Computing Advisor for BGI (China) and has a position in Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and King-Mong Kung University of Technology (Thailand). Professor See is currently involved in a number of International computational, mathematical science projects and national AI initiatives. Recently Professor Simon has been appointed as the Executive Director of the ASEAN Applied Research Centre (AARC). His research interests are in the area of High-Performance Computing, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computational Science, Applied Mathematics and Simulation Methodology. Professor See is also leading some of the AI initiatives in Asia Pacific. He is a Steering Committee member of NSCC’s flagship High Performance Computing Conference Supercomputing Asia (SCA) since March 2018. He has published over 200 papers in these areas and has won various awards in the field.
Professor See is a Fellow member of IET, Chairman of TaskForce of IEEE’s CIS Neural Networks Technical Committee, a member of SIAM, IET, AAAI, SCS, and also on the Advisory Team of AIP (AI Professional Association), International Advisory Board of Institute of Operations Research & Analytics (IORA), Advisory Team of Machine Intelligence and Data Analytics Research Centre (MIDARC), School of Computing Sciences (India) and Board of Studies, MS Tech Programs of Mahindra University, Editorial Board Member of Journal of Computational and Cognitive Engineering (JCCE), The Industry Advisory Committee for Bachelor of Science in Computer Science in Real-time Interactive Simulation and Interactive Media and Game Design at Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and the committee member of more than 50 conferences.
Professor See graduated from the University of Salford (UK) with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and numerical analysis in 1993. Prior to joining NVIDIA, Professor See worked for SGI, DSO National Lab. of Singapore, IBM, International Simulation Ltd (UK), Sun Microsystems and Oracle. He is also providing consultancy to a number of national research and supercomputing centers.
Dr Liming Zhu
Data61, Australia
Title: Building Scalable, Responsible AI for Real World Applications
Bio
Dr Liming Zhu is a Research Director at CSIRO’s Data61, the AI/digital arm of Australia’s national science agency, and a conjoint professor at UNSW. He contributes to the OECD.AI’s AI Risks and Accountability, the Responsible AI at Scale think tank at Australia’s National AI Centre, ISO AI standards committees, and Australia’s AI safety standard.
Bio
Dr Liming Zhu is a Research Director at CSIRO’s Data61, the AI/digital arm of Australia’s national science agency, and a conjoint professor at UNSW. He contributes to the OECD.AI’s AI Risks and Accountability, the Responsible AI at Scale think tank at Australia’s National AI Centre, ISO AI standards committees, and Australia’s AI safety standard. His research division innovates in AI engineering, responsible/safe AI, blockchain, quantum software, privacy, and cybersecurity, and hosted Australia’s Consumer Data Right/Open Banking standards setting. Dr Zhu has authored over 300 papers and is a regular keynote speaker. He delivered the keynote “Software Engineering as the Linchpin of Responsible AI” at the International Conference on Software Engineering. His latest book, “Responsible AI: Best Practices for Creating Trustworthy AI Systems,” and his forthcoming book, “Engineering AI Systems: DevOps and Architecture Approaches,” reflect his vision for the rigorous engineering of responsible and safe AI systems for society.
Simon Bush
CEO of AIIA, Australia
Bio
Simon Bush is the current CEO of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), and represents the Australian tech sector to government, industry, and media. His early career included being a senior ministerial adviser in the federal government, and he has held senior management roles, and set up his own advisory and consultancy business.
Bio
Simon Bush is the current CEO of the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA), and represents the Australian tech sector to government, industry, and media. His early career included being a senior ministerial adviser in the federal government, and he has held senior management roles, and set up his own advisory and consultancy business. As an experienced business leader, Simon’s career has covered government, ICT, management consulting, and media sectors.
Ross Dawson
Futurist, Australia
Bio
Ross Dawson is an Australian author, futurist, entrepreneur and former stockbroker. Best known for his 2002 book 'Living Networks', Dawson founded the futures think tank Future Exploration Network and consults on digital futures to various big organisations such as Ernst & Young, Macquarie Bank, Microsoft and News Corp.
Bio
Ross Dawson is an Australian author, futurist, entrepreneur and former stockbroker. Best known for his 2002 book 'Living Networks', Dawson founded the futures think tank Future Exploration Network and consults on digital futures to various big organisations such as Ernst & Young, Macquarie Bank, Microsoft and News Corp.
Named by Digital Media magazine as one of the 40 biggest players in Australia's digital age, Dawson graduated from Bristol University with a B.Sc (Hons) and from Macquarie University with a Grad. Dip in Applied Finance.
Dr Ian Oppermann
Commonwealth Data Standards Chair
ex NSW Chief Data Scientist, Australia
Bio
Dr. Ian Oppermann is co-founder of ServiceGen, helping Governments accelerate digital service delivery. He is also an Industry Professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and member of the board for multiple deep technology start-ups. Ian is also the Chair of the Commonwealth’s Data Standards Committee and an Advisor to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
Bio
Dr. Ian Oppermann is co-founder of ServiceGen, helping Governments accelerate digital service delivery. He is also an Industry Professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and member of the board for multiple deep technology start-ups. Ian is also the Chair of the Commonwealth’s Data Standards Committee and an Advisor to the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
From 2015 until 2023, Ian was the NSW Government’s Chief Data Scientist helping transform the way NSW understands and uses data and AI. Ian has 30 years experience in the ICT sector and has led organizations with more than 300 people, delivering products and outcomes that have impacted hundreds of millions of people globally. He has held senior management roles in Europe and Australia as Director for Radio Access Performance at Nokia, Global Head of Sales Partnering (network software) at Nokia Siemens Networks, and then Divisional Chief and Flagship Director at CSIRO.
Ian is considered a thought leader in the area of the Digital Economy and is a regular speaker on “Big Data”, broadband enabled services and the impact of technology on society. He has contributed to 6 books and co-authored more than 120 papers which have been cited more than 3500 times. Ian has an MBA from the University of London and a Doctor of Philosophy in Mobile Telecommunications from Sydney University. Ian is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia, a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW, a Fellow and Immediate Past President of the Australian Computer Society, and a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Ian is also president of the Australia National Committee of the IEC and president of the JTC1 strategic advisory committee in Australia.